Parasitic wasps are always an easy target as sci-fi parasites. After all, they were the main inspiration behind the film "Alien" - clearly they're 'sci-fi worthy'. They all do terrible, mean things to their hosts while they eat them alive from the inside out. And, simply, they're just really, really awesome parasites.

This week's wasp, however, is even more special: it's about to be featured in an upcoming National Geographic Channel event called In The Womb: Extreme Animals. Don't worry - I'll give you the down and dirty details on that soon (it premiers on May 10^th, just for a head's up). In the meantime, you get to see really awesome images (and video!) of this week's lovely parasitic wasp from the upcoming show.

These parasitic wasps are actually invasive, having been brought to North America in 1883 as a form of biocontrol of the cabbageworm which was an agricultural pest at the time. Soon after, they were introduced all over the world. Like almost all biocontrol efforts, the introduction of these parasitic wasps has had side effects on native species. Empirical studies suggest that Cotesia glomerata is at least partially, if not wholly responsible for the collapse of mustard white butterfly (Pieris napi) populations in Massachusetts . In the Canary Islands, the wasps have been singled out as a major threat to native butterfly populations by DNA evidence

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-- Edited by Jollyjo on Tuesday 18th of August 2009 04:27:07 AM